Sight to See
by eri
Summary: Gren sees something in Vicious that the older man can no longer see in himself. There is beauty in a troubled relationship.


**Sight to See**

**Gren sees something in Vicious that the older man can no longer see in himself. There is beauty in a troubled relationship. Rated for language and themes.**

The mirror was but a large shard of smudged, grimy glass propped up against the stone wall of a room in the makeshift barracks. It must have been a whole mirror once, but somewhere along the way it was broken and discarded. Still, the man who called himself Vicious could see well enough the tousled, greasy-looking mess that was his hair and the lines of his lean face, already getting thinner as the days went by on Titan. He pressed his fingers against the middle of his forehead and rubbed gently.

Back in the days of friendship, he had been the handsome one. His sleek, oddly white hair and sharp features were a startling combination. He was tall and wore trench coats, was trigger—happy not only with bullets, but also with potent shots of sarcasm. He was the young upstart of the Red Dragon with the guns and the woolongs, so the women came to him.

He heard hesitant footsteps outside the door. Turning away from his tired reflection, he strode toward the door and swung it open abruptly. Outside stood Gren.

"What do you want?"

"Can I come in?"

Vicious did not answer, although he left the door open as he walked back to his position in front of the mirror. He was indifferent to Gren's presence. The younger man seemed to be attuned to his moods enough that he knew to remain quiet and suck on a cigarette when Vicious showed no inclination for talk.

Gren sat himself down on the only chair in the room. Vicious tossed him a box of matches at the edge of the table, and then fumbled around in the pockets of his heavy garments for tobacco and filter paper. He handed Gren whatever he had, and the young man proceeded to roll two cigarettes.

In Titan there was only waiting and fighting, and idle talk among bored men as they waited. Vicious did not like to talk. He often came to this isolated room to sit and brood, and here was this mirror which he could look into and try to remember what he was like before.

Identical lines ran on each side of his face, from the inner corners of his eyes until the tips of his cheekbones, and they were etched so deep that they looked like they were carved in with a knife. It made him look older than he was, like life had thrown him much trouble. Before, they were merely the God—given quirks of an intriguing face. That was what Julia had said.

"What good does that mirror do you?"

"Nothing."

"You're not really looking at it when you stare at it, you know?"

"Give me the cigarette."

Gren handed him the perfectly rolled cigarette. The younger man had surprisingly slender and dexterous fingers despite his strength — Vicious had noticed the odd fact one day as he was watching him roll cigarettes. He had hands like a woman. Shit, he even looked like a woman at the right angles, particularly from the profile.

There was talk that Gren was a queen, and there was talk that Vicious liked Gren because he was a queen, but none of the other men dared to venture further than such talk. Vicious had made it clear that he preferred solitude, even on lonely Titan, and people did not really know what to make of him. They vaguely knew of his past as a gangster, so they kept out of his way. Gren was the likeable sort, and the other men left him alone out of respect for that, and his ability with a rifle.

"So what good do I do you, Gren?"

The younger man with the melancholic, heavy—lidded eyes looked surprised. He took a quick drag of his cigarette, then another, but otherwise remained silent. But Vicious could see from the quick rise and fall of his chest that he was nervous. Vicious laughed, not a little cruelly.

"I'm your comrade, your brother... maybe a little more?"

"No, just a comrade."

"I have a woman, she's a beautiful one. But I haven't seen her for so long that maybe fucking a man might feel good."

"I don't think your woman is coming back to you."

"She's still mine."

Gren did not say anything more, and his silence made a mockery out of Vicious' assertion. Julia wasn't really his anymore; he knew that, but Pride refused to admit her abandonment, and Power kept her within his clutches. Pride and Power seethed inside his sickened soul, but Gren saw only his loss.

Vicious turned away from his mirror finally, and took a long, scrutinizing look at the man in front of him. He couldn't say he knew him at all, but somehow Gren had managed to find out about _him_. Not through the grapevine surely, but through espial. This man came to him, sat with him, smoked with him — the only man in the whole camp to bother, and he found out things about him precisely through the lack of words. The crazy bastard.

Like that other crazy bastard. Friends for life, as they had once proclaimed in the euphoric aftermath of drink and marijuana, at seventeen, the age where their shiny guns had thrilled their burgeoning egos to no end. I cover your back, you cover mine, and we'll share the girl if you like her.

The girls came to him first, the handsome one, and then to Spike, the funny one. Easy-going Spike, never minding the leftovers, for girls were girls and every opportunity for a bit of fucking was as good as the other. He didn't really care, at seventeen. Not at eighteen or nineteen or twenty either, although by then he had evolved his own nice guy charm, and he picked up his own girls. It's all about the hair, he would say, pointing at the ridiculous mess on his head, and Vicious would smirk and agree.

Years later, skills honed, Spike picked up his Julia. He didn't even have to try very hard, just stare in childish wonder at the vision of the woman who walked into the bar. That was the beginning of it all, and Vicious should have seen it coming. He should have watched over his woman. But he really did trust his idiot of a friend. Who said Vicious wasn't a nice guy.

"Come here, Gren."

The younger man obeyed, rising from his seat with typical insouciant grace, and stood before Vicious, hands folded across his chest and half-smoked cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. If he was nervous, only the shifting of his eyes betrayed him. He was as tall as Vicious, though he had the sort of slouchy posture that made him look the affable sort.

What did Gren see in him that both Spike and Julia had lost sight of? The tension was palpable, as if the air was crackling with stirring energy, when he picked the cigarette out of Gren's lips and threw it on the floor, stepping on it thoroughly to put out the light. Then he kissed him. Teeth clacked against teeth in that rough, delicious moment.

Kissing a man wasn't all that different from kissing a woman. It was the same play of lips and teeth and tongue, the same intimate taste of another person. To want and to be wanted — it was a sweet moment of respite. He pressed a hand behind Gren's head, noting how soft his hair was, just like a woman's, as he pressed the younger man closer, and kissed him harder still.

Then Vicious decided it was over. He released Gren, who stumbled backwards a little, looking a bit surprised. Gren opened his mouth as if to say something, but Vicious cut him off.

"Perhaps, another day."

There wasn't much for Gren to argue about, because he understood, as well as Vicious did, who was the one who wanted more. It was a dismissal, which Gren obviously disliked, from the way his eyes narrowed as he wiped his mouth roughly with the back of his hand.

Vicious turned his back on Gren, feeling ashamed that he had succumbed to the charms of another man. He looked at Gren through the mirror, couldn't help but notice how unsophisticated the he looked standing there, obviously not knowing what to do with himself either. Had Vicious ever been uncertain? He must have been like that, once, a long time ago.

"I've never loved a woman before."

That's what he had said to Julia one day, in the beginning. He had been uncertain too. He couldn't remember her response now. That moment belonged to a time of innocence he buried deep into the recesses of his brain. He wondered if Spike had ever said the same thing to her. Would Spike stroke her hair and whisper it into her ear? Vicious simply said things. Spike, on the other hand, could really get into the mood of something once he got started.

Vicious watched Gren watching him, sadness and fear and concern all mixed up in his persistent gaze. Like Spike, like Julia — this was the very same way they looked at him from time to time once they began their affair. There was nothing he could do about the errant lovers, not now when he was in the middle of war. But there was something he could do about this man who reminded him so much of the days of before.

"Will you betray me?"

"Huh?"

Vicious repeated the question slowly, at the same time turning around until he was facing Gren again. He noticed how the young man's mouth was still slightly swollen from the violent kiss. Something inside him stirred.

"No."

That was all Vicious needed to hear. He moved closer to Gren again.


End file.
